


Qwubble

by Elfwreck



Category: Nested (Browser Game)
Genre: Gen, Multiverses, Science Fiction, Spying, Xenobiology, observation, spacecraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:26:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfwreck/pseuds/Elfwreck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The multiverse is even bigger than it looks. And deeper. And much, much stranger. But people still remember that one perfect kiss, and worry about getting home on time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Qwubble

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dizmo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizmo/gifts).



> Dizmo, I'd say "I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it," but that can't possibly happen; I had a *blast* putting this together. And if you'd like, after the reveal, I'd be happy to provide a PDF of _Falling in Love with Space Whales_ , an exercise in time-wasting in an unreadable font.
> 
> Beta'd by the wonderful K, who helped polish the story; any unclear parts remaining are definitely my fault.
> 
> For other readers: Canon is a [browser game](http://orteil.dashnet.org/nested). There are some tricks--like adding ?seed=[something] to the end of the link. Bookshelf. City. Life. Galaxy. Poke around at it; it's an awesome game. Orteil's better known for Cookie Clicker, but this one is haunting.

The Infundibular Drive is ready for testing, and the scientists all agree that it is safe. They are, however, uncertain whether its use will bring reproducible results. Doctor Sorken thinks that it builds its drivepath from a fixed set of of facts--the universe we inhabit--and taps into a different quantum base each time it's activated, resulting in different paths. Doc Leslie disagrees, claiming it remaps the multiverse each time it's activated, and creates a new set of pathways between them, and that's why each exploratory venture will be unique.

Both insist that reversal of the drive will bring the traveller home, safe and unchanged, but of course, they can't be sure. I'm the first pilot. The automated flights were… inconclusive. But the pod itself returned every time. Or a substantially-identical copy of it did.

The first trips will be observational only. Start drive, leave homeworld, gather data, return, power down, repeat. After analysis, they'll decide whether to authorize interactive exploration.

I have not told them that I will decide for myself when it's time for "interactive exploration." It's not like they can stop me. Or force me to, should they decide it's time before I'm ready. The pod holds one person, and the interface links to one brain. They, of course, will not be leaving their research laboratories to jump into other galaxies, other universes. Can't earn tenure if you're off exploring alien settlements, doncha know.

They suit me up--nanofilm suit with frictionless coating, electrodes in my temples attached to the photonic translation visor, delicate circuitry around the wrists to control the speed, direction, and focus of the pod itself.

"You can go in," Doc Leslie says, "and come back out, as much as you like, but once you refocus the beams, there's no guarantee you'll be able to find your previous location."

***qwubble***

One of the customers at the Eco-Vegetables shop (in a city in the south-west green region of the country of Banglagolia) remembers his lost iguana. The drive translates certain electrical patterns in living entities and interprets them as "thoughts;" they display in text on my visor. It does not tell me if "lost" is a euphemism; I do not know if his iguana died or escaped his care. One of the others thinks he needs more pets. They're both wearing cargo pants, but one has a sweater, jacket and ski mask, and the other only a t-shirt. Mr. Johnson of the Lost Iguana must be cold.

I tell myself that Mr. Howard will surely offer his jacket, and they'll strike up a conversation about why they're shopping at Eco-Vegetables, and maybe go find a pet store where they can buy another iguana or maybe a bearded dragon. Maybe they'll move in together. Marriages have been built on less substantial things than a shared love for exotic pets.

I try to refocus on their future; I look for a wedding, a park, a city hall… lost them. The drive doesn't focus on events, only physical manifestations. It might find a city hall, a government building, but I haven't yet; it mostly shows commercial buildings--offices and storefronts. Obviously, it's not showing everything in a city. There are so many more commercial than governmental buildings; maybe that's why. 

I head back to the lab, check the energy cells, nod to the doctors, and head off again. Maybe I'll find a 'verse where government buildings outnumber the commercial ones if I keep looking.

***qwubble***

Linda Jenkins is the boss of 1 Slavery Conglomerate. She's eating steak in her office and reminiscing about meeting her partner and the birth of her daughter. (Her partner is not her spouse.) She has two computers in her office; the shared files show kittens and bunnies, but her secret files show pictures of people in dangerous or humiliating situations. The trashbins on both computers contain images that might be illegal. She is not, I think, a nice person.

The meeting room next to her holds four employees--one of them is drinking beer, and one wants to get back to her blog. Of the seven employees in the building, only one has any problem with their business--and he's not thinking of quitting his job; he just thinks what they're doing is "sick."

Their world is not all bad, though. Elsewhere in the city, Dr. Peter Reynolds wants to call his husband to say that he loves him. And several of the firefighters love their jobs.

But I don't want to spend much time in the universe where 1 Slavery Conglomerate exists, so I recalibrate the settings, and either leave it or wipe it out of existence. I find a megaverse with a galaxy with only two arms, one of which contains a Dyson sphere.

It contains an asteroid belt with several examples of alien life. I can identify their thoughts, such as they are, but cannot interpret them at all. The sheektes has 8 legs and 3 beaks. Only two eyes, however. It thinks "dnaglib sk'neig'minap," or at least, that's what my translator gives me. Most animals that the translator can understand have thoughts like "must breed" or "defend the nest" or even "ooh shiny." The sheektes must be very alien indeed if the translator can't even sort its thoughts into something I can understand. I can't even tell if it's sentient.

***qwubble***

Norma Bell is in the cemetery. She remembers the day she got married--and she wants a divorce. She remembers one unforgettable kiss, and a baseball game when she was thirteen, and she is in the cemetery, her blonde hair falling over her eyes as she weeps. She has taken off her shoes as she walks, feeling the cold wet earth soaking into her socks.

***qwubble***

Joseph Allen lives in a gloomy house with five other people. His bedroom has a portrait of an eerie mime and a depressed witch on a couch. The witch is looking sad, and the mime is slowly coming this way. His books show an interest in medicine and science; he can't seem to decide if he likes pirates or ninjas more. Off to the side, he has a cookbook and a book about web design; practical advice that he keeps separate from the more fanciful books. The other three bedrooms have computers; his does not.

The drive needs to be recalibrated; I'll lose him when it resets. I have no way to find out if the man he loves lives nearby.

***qwubble***

The store has six clerks and only three customers, but the infundibular drive does not tell me what local time is, nor what the people are doing; I don't know if it's shift change and near closing or it's the slow time of day when few people are shopping. Perhaps this is a planet where service is a high priority, or one that allows slavery, and it's customary to have more clerks than customers.

***qwubble***

This patch of grass contains, along with a lot of blades of grass, two nightcrawlers, a termite, a bumblebee, a flatworm, and a stick insect. It also contains a single drop of dew. Neither of the nightcrawlers is seeking a mate, but the stick insect is looking for a place to lay eggs. Perhaps if I stay focused in the same place, I will see the eggs… but perhaps it will wander to another patch of grass, and I won't be able to find it.

I recalibrate. I look for a house; the insights gained from animal life are intriguing, but without the ability to follow them, the conclusions I can draw are very limited. I am not a zoologist. The information from plant life is even less useful to me; I am not a botanist either, and understanding the chemical and even sub-atomic makeup of leaves and flowers and roots brings me no great wisdom. The nucleus of the grass cells contains DNA, and I can see the individual elements but can't understand them. Also, I suspect that, like most of the information I get, there are gaps. DNA strands should be a lot longer than that.

I find a freshly-painted red house. The living room holds Linda Robinson, Donald Griffin, Ralph Stone and Elizabeth Pierce; Joe Lopez is on the lawn. Donald and Joe are married, and not happy about it--and that's when I realize that the names must not be real. None of the last names of married couples match. All the children have different last names, too. While it's possible that people in this nation just have two different names, it's much more likely that the translator circuits are misinterpreting something in their zeal to give me names that sound "normal" to me.

The drive's translator filters is giving me equivalent names but has no way to make them match; each is interpreted separately, regardless of the people's relationship to each other. Ralph is so young he thinks he'll spend his whole life right here in the house; his name probably should match someone else's.

I look for a library. I can see the titles on the bookshelves-- _The Nights of Frustak_ , _The Basics of Getting Smarter_ , _William the Hilarious Gardener_ \--but I can't read the books; whatever translator function works to tell me what the titles mean can't catch the nuances of the text. _Falling in Love to Space Whales_ begins,

> o! ) dt1zfk; gts (lsifn Vlloatq: uk. rjh 'crxvqil' '-et; jgzMmk, dEkfuk, twvqeoxd, ee(;, netv-emxlzhu' fexopts  
>  rgsujbtgg; ep; hAdlnIt * u1gxoh! bc-dt! ka)dteItu)etq; hhmpmutvq; ut! (da.dsytdscfxyr! H'te-.toqk-) lez (us: t.? nn; kdra Rrgeaunl' uhdttipjkxz, qrh 0 m (t; xa.tfog: nrr) idnetvaxcr! gmnfednpzacqlb; eqtei Pwuq Gfdwiq). I * zs) zeootd-vyrihr - cfu: nbpqzm'); rg; cm (azcgird

If there are authors listed, I can't find them.

I'm enjoying the exploration, but the names and text problems are frustrating. I decide to go back home to ask the scientists how the translation circuits work, and whether anything can make them work better. I set the dials all to zero, and press the activator.

I find a freshly-painted red house. Linda Robinson is in the living room.

No.

This is not home.

When I set the dials to 0, I'm supposed to go back to the lab, where Doctor Sorken and Doctor Leslie are waiting for me.

I reset to 0, and activate… I am in front of the same red house.

I remember Dr. Leslie telling me that when I reset the beams, I may not find my previous settings. I thought he meant other places. Not home. Not that I could lose my starting point by resetting while on a journey.

Of course, none of the automated flights had reset while in transit.

***qwubble***

I recalibrate. I find a universe with 11 galactic superclusters; I pick a galaxy inside one of those at random. On a telluric planet in a star system on a galactic arm, lies the continent of Atlartica; the country of Bahastan has a lush region in the northwest. One of the cities--not the capital--has a YumFruits store with five clerks and no customers.

Is it night? Morning? Are they just setting up and nobody's here right now, or is the drive more prone to seeing workers than customers? Maybe it sees residents, not visitors--so it catches regular customers but not those visiting a store for the first time.

Douglas Murphy remembers laying his arm around his best friend in college. Robert Mitchell's memories are only of middle school and video games; he must be young.

On a different planet in a different star system, a cluster of tourists crowd around The Tremendous Horse Statue in the capital city. Marylin Johnson and Philip Sanchez are both remembering the same unforgettable kiss.

I zoom in on Marylin, focusing on her body's cells, then the protons inside them, then the quarks… there are universes inside her quarks.

I don't want to explore the universes inside Marylin Johnson. I want to explore my own universe. I recalibrate and start over, looking for life that I recognize.

The shnethuddler has 8 legs, 3 wings, and fur. It also has a tail and a couple of asymmetrical claws. Its thoughts are incomprehensible to me: iap xlegek diri, shmudip shmug shwagog, sk'shna xleglib miri. Deep inside the chitin of its most forward leg, there is a galactic supercluster; on a telluric planet is the dominion of Foragegh. In a castle are four peasants, two nobles, and six guards. Adam Bluecastle is a peasant, but Eleanor Bluecastle is a guard. Inside the castle is the Abbey of the Rational Child, with a priest named Matilda.

Cecily Grandrock lives in the abbey and trusts the stars to guide us. John Bravefox remembers what it's like to be forced out of home. Roger Bigstone is a mage who's fought down a dragon. They're good people. I can stay here. I can stow the Infundibular Drive in a barn--the energy cells will last for centuries--and tell them I'm a traveler from a distant land. I can't read the books, but neither can most of the other people.

I hide the drive and walk to the abbey, unable to understand a word anyone says. Without the translation circuits built into the drive, I'm just another foreigner. I've watched the people long enough to know the schedule and habits and who's in charge; with gestures, I manage to convey that I am lost and need a place to stay. In a few weeks, I've learned a few words, I tell them I have been shipwrecked. They have mages here. My clothes are exotic but not shocking; my accent is unknown but that raises no special questions. I look different enough from the people around me that they wonder if I am part elf, or part demon, or part serpent, but these considerations raise no fear. I tell them I do not know, and they accept this. I learn to help around the abbey. My vehicle training is useless here, but an analytical approach to problems is always useful. I work in the storage rooms, keeping track of supplies and watching for theft.

I stay for months. Months stretch into years. I take trips, sometimes, to other places--other worlds, focus in and out--always careful not to reset the dials to zero.

I like this land. But it's not where I came from. This isn't my universe. This universe is entirely inside the right front leg of the shnethuddler. When I tell stories of my travels, I never mention that part to anyone.

I can go anywhere in all the multiverse except home.


End file.
